Mystery Entrepreneur Offers Advice to Independent Bookstore Owners: Future Boils Down to ONE Question!
Let’s stop boo-hooing and get on to the business of conjuring up ways to reinvent those independent bookstores that are still managing to survive, while the big boxes and online retailers busy themselves trying to knock each other off with price wars and territorial imperatives.
Actually, as I think about it, this situation is kind of like the implosion of the independent stock photography business in the late 1990’s and early 2000. [Stock photo agencies maintain libraries of photographs for commercial use by advertisers, packagers, publishers, web designers and the like. Originally, stock photos were “rights-protected” and were only leased to users, as opposed the more recent situation where many images are designated “royalty-free” and sold outright.] The industry was different, but the battle royale taking place between Getty Images and Corbus (think Microsoft) over dominance and market share wreaked havoc in that industry in a manner very similar to that being wrought on the independent booksellers now. Price wars turned $3500 rights-protected images into $250 images, while high-quality royalty-free (read: cheap) images ($79!) decimated the rights-protected business model. Small stock photo agencies hunkered down in fox holes, but most ended up waving white flags, joining one warring side or the other and surrendering their inventories—ostensibly as “acquisitions,” but more accurately as starving prisoners of war whose assets were pillaged. The dead stock photography agencies were buried.
As the business model shifted, it was all about “just surviving” and not going under until a new model could emerge. In the stock photo industry survival turned out to be about understanding what the people who bought photos really wanted and needed (mostly cheap, unprotected images), and then being willing and able to switch from bricks and mortar to clicks and mortar and ultimately to clicks alone (sound familiar?) in the nick of time. The stock photo industry shake-up and shakedown left a very different industry in its wake.
But enough of the gloom and doom. As Mark Twain said: Everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it. Let’s do something about it!
Wicked Witch Asks Entrepreneurs for Advice: I fired off emails to some entrepreneurs I know (not in the bookselling business) to get their insight into transitional periods when business models become outmoded and only the innovative will survive. Below is the strongest, most direct response I received. The businessman who fired off his recommendation sold his 25-year-old international company several years ago to a publicly traded company. Luckily, I caught him between tee times. He took the time to hold forth and give me his thoughts. He is also a HarperCollins author, by the way.
WW: Mystery Correspondent (MC), how would you reincarnate independent bookstores?
MC: Famous old business story: At the turn of the century, when almost all transportation was horse-and-carriage, there were two companies that made buggy whips. Along came automobiles, eliminating the need for buggy whips, and one of the companies went out of business. The other adapted itself and survived—by re-tooling to provide accessories for automobiles.
The difference between the two companies? The one that went out of business thought of itself as being in the business of making buggy whips (”We are a buggy whip company.”) and, with the sudden and complete disappearance of the demand for that product, was rapidly extinguished. The second company understood that it was not necessarily in the “buggy whip” business, but, rather, in the “transportation” business. (”We are a transportation support provider.”) That broader, deeper and smarter view of things caused them to have a completely different mindset, one that enabled them to have no trouble seeing what the company needed to do within the context of THAT business to adapt, survive, and thrive.
WW: Ok, I get that. Bookstores cannot limit themselves to just selling books, calendars, magazines and do-dads, and booking authors. Anyhow, B&N, Borders, Books-a-Million and the K-Marts, BJ’s and Costco’s of the US do that, too.
MC: Independent bookstores will not be able to survive financially by selling books: They cannot possibly compete on price for a book the purchaser already knows he/she wants—and, beyond price, customer service—even browsing—is so fast and excellent with the on-line sellers that there is no reason not to purchase from them.
Books can be bought cheaply and efficiently from too many people other than the independent bookstores. They, the bookstores, need to figure out what they can provide OTHER than books, while still revolving AROUND books, that CANNOT be provided by the others—and figure out a way to charge for THAT.
WW: But, I am stumped? What sort of other things that are not provided by Barnes & Noble, Borders or Books-A- Million or the Costco’s of America could you possibly mean?
MC: Believe me, Starbucks is not charging $5 for COFFEE… That said, bookstores can’t be just “Starbucks with books.” They need to be smarter than that and cleverer. (It may even be that the book itself—is the buggy whip…)
WW: Clever how? I hate this nebulous stuff.
MC: How do they figure that out? There are a bunch of ways, all involving a delicate balance between science and art that I wrote 1500 pages of marketing manual about, years ago. In that manual, one of the most important sections—and one that my own people overlooked a lot and didn’t quite understand, is entitled “When in doubt—Ask!” If I were an independent bookseller, that’s where I would start, all the while circling back and back and back to the prime, core question: “What would you have to believe about my store to be willing to come here and spend money here?” Most of the people they ask that question to will not have an answer—or, at least, not an answer that would prove to be truthful and accurate. But some, eventually, will. Sort of. And that’s the place to start….
Anyway, beyond that underlying premise, I’m not sure where it leads. But someone will figure it out, and, in the process, change the way people who buy and read books interface with the people who produce them.
WW: What about Publishers? Aren’t publishers part of the problem? Shouldn’t they be part of the solution?
MC: My guess is that somewhere in that solution will be the elimination of “publishers” as we traditionally know them. The only other industry consisting of massively over-compensated mediocre performers who have utterly outlasted their utility and raison d’etre and exist only by virtue of an entrenched, self-protective, bullying autocracy that gangs up against threats posed by obviously more efficient methods that would, could, should and will eliminate them—is Wall Street.
WW: Gulp.
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): See also: Are Handsellers in Bookstores as Rare as the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker in Arkansas? Part II next week: The Wicked Witch of Publishing Inherits a Make-Believe Bookstore.
Also, remember to leave your email address if you want to receive notification of future postings. Just use the link on the right-hand sidebar under PAGES. Say: Sign me up!
January 10th, 2007 at 7:15 pm
I can certainly think of things that an independent bookseller could offer that I cannot get from Amazon or B&N. However, this is a family blog. In any event, Happy Birthday to Max Roach.
January 10th, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Try to think of an industry that isn’t going through what the indy booksellers are standing there sucking their
thumbs and looking at. Think you’ve got trouble? How’d you like to be a cellphone maker after seeing the IPhone yesterday?
Mr. Mystery is right. If your store is empty–except for all those books–you need a new business model. Famous Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times.
January 10th, 2007 at 8:37 pm
The last paragraph says it all. In spite of their attraction to the beret-wearing latte crowd, the chains will eventually strangle and begin merging (more) to survive. Similarly, the publishers will continue to reap the consequences of their mediocrity and failure to read the trends in technology that are transforming the industry.
I see little being done by independents to survive—instead they are withdrawing into hopeless niches: “New Age,” non-fiction only, twelve-step, Gay, whatever, in hopes of attracting small but profitless audiences. Selling bangles, beads and Donkey Konga Bongo PC games won’t help them a bit.
The whole world of publishing and selling is on a course entirely its own—market driven and immune to grandiose planning–and will play out in ways no one expects over the next several years.
Put on your hat and coat and act as if nothing is amiss—you are going for a ride.
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): Andrew is a retired California Highway Patrolman turned freelance journalist and author. He is editor of The Jimston Journal, “a quarterly online publication for the arts.”
January 10th, 2007 at 8:45 pm
I’d like my local bookstore to offer a book-of-the-month service in which they pick the book—knowing my interests and tastes—and put the book aside for me or mail it or deliver it—whatever my preference. I used to be a member of Book of the Month Club, and did a lot more reading when I was. My taste in books is very different from Book of the Month Club books now.
January 10th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
Just from personal experience, I’d say the bookstores should diversify. If all they’re offering is books… well, that I can shop on any number of websites for. And that I’m price-sensitive about. But I’m not price sensitive when it comes to the experience of going to a big chain bookstore, which I do for the tactile pleasure of discovering new books, thumbing through them, judging them by their cover, etc. I also enjoy places that offer exotic coffees from faraway places and yummy treats, stationary, those fun little knicknacks you see at Border’s, and maybe even CDs and DVDs. Even if I don’t buy them, I know they’re there, and I like that.
Independent bookstores could also consider involving the community. Display the artwork of local artists. Sell it, if possible (and make a commission)! Support local folk/acoustic bands, and invite them to play Friday and Saturday nights. Maybe their little groupies will even buy some exotic, expensive coffee.
January 10th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
My bookstore would be a combination cafe/bookstore. The cafe would specialize in offerings for sensitive tummies— vegetarian, gluten free, dairy free etc., but would of course also include the expensive coffees & teas Americans love to shell out for. The cafe space would host the artist events as described above. The book collection would probably be wide but not very deep. And I’d sell tchotchkies galore —because I’d know that’s where the real margins are.
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): Uh oh! Granola eater!
January 10th, 2007 at 10:15 pm
I read every post, Lynne…….. it’s good stuff!! U R funny too.
January 10th, 2007 at 10:59 pm
As an entrepreneur, I faced this same problem about 15 years ago when the business I had became unprofitable. I
remolded what I was doing and am still in business today.
Since these are indy stores, the same model won’t work for all of them. As an example, I was looking at the suggestions above. None of them would work in our small town. LOL…the stores would just go broke faster.
I think each business needs to decide first, if they still want to be in business…sometimes after being a mom and pop indy for many years, people are just burnt out! Then use MC’s main suggestion…ask their patrons what they would like to see in their ideal book store.
Off the top of my head…regularly bringing in authors for readings and signings, offer stations to preview and buy e-books…maybe even selling those little electronic things to read them on…whatever works in the particular market!
January 11th, 2007 at 12:32 am
I’m having enough trouble in my business. There are cheaper people all over the map; they offer no service, do lousy work and sell low class products. I try to skim off the top and offer design, service, and turnkey jobs. But price seems to rule. The problem as I see it is that people think price is the answer and forget about the good service some of us give them. I always think about John Ruskins saying about the memory of poor quality will remain long after the draw of cheap price is gone. But in my business, you only get one chance. It’s not a repeat business with the user; only with the re seller and all they care about is cheap!!!!!
January 11th, 2007 at 3:45 am
Thare are some successful independents - maybe it would be a good idea to look at what they do. For instance there
is one near me in the UK that it is in a small town, is incredibly well-stocked, and does alll the things TS Elliot and Jackie suggest.
They have an excellent cafe selling slightly exotic food, coffee (of course) but also wine, exhibitions of pantings, a regular monthly meeting which includes a poetry session not only a poet and open mic session, but live music and a ‘painting of the month’,separate lectures from local and international authors and book-signings. They also sell a few games and toys and book-related things like the Penguin book mugs. They send out newsletters to attract people to events and when I gave a talk there about 30 people attended - of course they are packed when there’s someone well-known. When Michael Winner paid a visit he was so impressed he wrote about it in the Times.
They work hard, listen to their customers and have become a thriving good-looking community centre making a profit. Maybe it is partly accident of location and not of all of this would apply to other places but they are an example of a successful independent bookshop.
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): Clare Dudman is a British writer with novels published by Sceptre(UK), Penguin(US) and Ambo Anthos(Netherlands) and short stories in forthcoming anthologies published by Serpent’s Tail(UK) Tor(US) and Social Disease(UK). Her blog is Keeper of the snails.
January 11th, 2007 at 10:34 am
All Independent bookstore owners should visit Joseph-Beth Booksellers (Cincinnati, Cleveland, Charlotte, Lexington,
Pittsburgh). They are the business model to follow (since 1986). Any author who has had a signing at a Jo-Beth store will tell you, they are hooked into the community, know how to market, promote, hand-sell and throw a great party/event. For my signing they had a “Girl’s Night Out” party, with goodies and give-aways. Huge turn-out.
Although B&N has figured out that yoga mats aren’t too big of a stretch for a bookstore, my experience there is that not even the employees are aware of their upcoming events. And they could use someone like Ron Popeil to teach them the art of hand-selling.
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): From DC’s hilarious Web site: DC Stanfa’s abilities in salesmanship led to speaking before both social and professional events where her topics include “From Bold To Sold: Getting What You Want By Being A Shameless Opportunist.” Her engagements—built around humor and the importance of self-esteem—draw from her own experiences at surviving high school, the Catholic church, datelessness, and the “Jerry Springer Show.” She is the author of the memoir The Art of Table Dancing: Escapades of an Irreverent Woman. Fabulous write-ups in Citizen-Times and The Enquirer.
January 11th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
Somebody should speak up about the best independent book stores in my great reading town, Seattle. It isn’t about putting in a greeting card aisle. It’s about books, folks. Our venerable Elliott Bay Book Company, and its sister store, Third Place Books, simply work harder at being that “third place” where people go (after home and work). Their
cheeks are rosy. Go see the sites.
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): Hi, Dave. Actually, I’m working on Part II right now for next week. I’ll have some “operational” recommendations from the WW of P based on a “pretend” bookstore that the WWof P inherits! Stay tuned! [Dave is working on his first novel, Marconi Dreams. It's about an industry he "cut his teeth" in---radio. Check out also, Dehype, his second blog.]
January 11th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
If there was ANY bookstore within jogging distance of the priory, I’d certainly be leaping over the wall much more often. Outside of the canonical library here at the cloister I must rely on the nearby web café for all of my non-clerical reading.
Prior (no pun intended) to taking my vows I lived in Pioneer Square across the street from Seattle’s Elliott Bay Book Company. They are a prime example of an independent bookstore that has grown from almost nothing in the early Seventies to become one of the town’s destination attractions.
January 11th, 2007 at 7:19 pm
Lynne, as you know, nothing stirs the blood quite like this conversation about bookstores. Elliott Bay is very good and there are a half-dozen bookshops within a ten block radius of that store ( also about forty taverns. How do they survive?).
The hideous Walden Books is going under with its charming mall ambience and fatigue inducing decor. Your mystery guest did not mention the terms of trade that exist between publishers and sales outlets, though they are as modern as any other by-product of the New Deal. We have decades to sort this out.
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: David Thayer is a contributor to January Magazine. He writes crime fiction and thrillers with the intent of getting them published. It is his hope that Einstein’s theory of doing the same thing over and over in the expectation of a different outcome is wrong. His first book review for the Philadelphia Inquirer will be published in March.
January 11th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
Our very own Bookhampton seems to survive. Do you think it’s location, location, location, being in East Hampton and Sag Harbor? Beyond that, they offer good service and I know where I’m going to buy a present for my husband’s birthday on Sunday. You know why I wasn’t shopping for a lower-priced favorite mystery on line earlier in the week.
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): Maralyn, I think you have to be living well (by your own definition) off the revenues generated by the bookstore to be considered a successful bookstore owner. If you are wracked with anxiety and must hand-deliver the payment for the light bill or you’ll be selling books in the dark, you are not successful. More on that next week in Part II.
January 11th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
I have an excellent independent in close by. They bring in authors both local and national. They have a great
cafe/coffee shop and carry best sellers as well as unique or boutique titles.
Two days ago my sons car wouldn’t start he borrowed my SUV.
Yesterday and today we have been hit with a massive (100 year) snowstorm.
Tomorrow and on the weekend I am busy.
Even though I love my local independent I just ordered 9 books from Amazon.
We have numerous demands on our time and even with the best intentions some things will have to adapt or fade. Books are a luxury, so is service, but time is the biggest luxury of all and I would rather spend what little free time I have reading than shopping. Ce le vie
January 12th, 2007 at 2:29 am
I have been doing the bookselling thing for 15 years now in Seattle. We have continued to grow in each of our 15
years of business. Our shop might be one of the only shops in the country to have expanded in the past bunch of years. How? Not by being independent but by trying to be unique. We sell new, used, rare, fine press, small press, book arts, maps, wood engravings…
Much more to say on this - My Bookseller Manifesto appears on my blog Book Patrol at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer website
January 12th, 2007 at 7:57 am
Some incoming links referencing this posting:
Richard Charkin, CEO, MacMillan UK at Charkin Blog: Buchpreisbindung
Phil at Brandywine Books Blog: When Selling the Main Product is not Enough.
Michael Allen in the UK at Grumpy Old Bookman Blog: Is it the Indies at Risk…or Gasp!
Frank Wilson critic for The Philadelphia Inquirer at Books, Inq. Blog: Also Check Out…
Visitors are flooding in from the UK, Germany, Slovenia, Portugal, India, Israel, Bermuda, Romania, Brazil, Australia and Canada, as well as from across the US.
How do you answer Mystery Correspondent’s hard question: What would you have to believe about my store to be willing to come here and spend money?
January 12th, 2007 at 10:04 am
Lynne
I believe that you are overlooking the most important factor : it is rather the bookchains, with their boring boilerplate uniformity, which are doomed.
Just look at the disastrous trading results recently issued for Waterstone here in the UK : most indies would be gaining additional customers every day because the chains just do not offer the catholic (eclectic) selection which an indie sources for its *local* customers. Indie shops are stocked for *local* needs : book chains stock uniformly according to head office edicts, regardless of whether they are promoting the right books for the local trade.
Many UK indies no longer stock frontlist bestsellers, because the supermarkets discount them to beneath cost to an indie bookshop : however, there’s a living to be made away from the mainstream.
The future is far rosier for the indies than the picture which is often painted, why the heck do you think that 97 indies, with ABA membership, opened in the US in 2006 ?
January 12th, 2007 at 11:09 am
Browsing in a bookstore to find a book I or someone else might want to read causes me anxiety and indecision. The choice is too overwhelming. I have sensory overload. If there were some new way to organize the store so that I could make a decision with confidence, quickly, that might bring me into my local bookstore.
January 12th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Before I get into it, I’m going to point out (and I will admit that I have a certain bitterness here) that Joseph Beth
may technically be “independent,” but in recent years, they’ve embraced the same “move into a new town and destroy existing indies” ethos that B&N and Borders share. They tried to do just that to our store two years ago, and I’m happy to say we’re holding our own. JB’s problem in Charlotte is ultimately that they really aren’t “hooked in the community” (how could they be here when they’ve been in town two years and we’ve been here for 30?), and therefore they have to work harder to establish relationships. Plus, they stupidly located their store within two-miles of a decades-old indie (us) and literally across the street from both a Borders and a B&N, in a mall that charges a whopping big rent. So our Joseph Beth is, in my experience and from many other reports, a big, empty store where the employee at the counter rarely looks up from his magazine (no reading at the counter in our store), though the many candles do smell nice. Do not, in other words, get me started on Joseph Beth.
As Clive mentions earlier, reports of the death of the indie bookstore are greatly exaggerated. A couple of points. First, people are starting to realize that online shopping is not a panacea for our overstressed lifestyles. People are doing it, yes, and rather a lot of it, but I know we’re losing a lot less of our business to Amazon than we were just a few years ago. One reason is that we can get books for people as fast as or faster than Amazon (and with no shipping charge). I would like to believe that another reason is that people want to keep their money in the community. We’ve all heard the one about how shopping at an indie leaves twice as much in the community as at a chain, but when you shop at Amazon, none of your money is staying in the community, and many of my customers now tell me that’s important to them.
Second, price is not the issue it was ten years ago. Sure, some bargain shoppers will always be buying their books at Wal-Mart or the warehouse clubs (the clubs, by the way, sell the book for approximately what I buy it for), but the chain bookstores are no longer discounting willy-nilly. They now limit it to a modest discount (20-30%) on NYT bestsellers, which we also offer. So, relative to the bookstore chains, we’re competitive on price; we simply offer things that they can’t.
I’m not talking about non-book tchotchkes; I’m talking about service and relationships. Me and Sally and our staff (we are blessed with the Best Staff in the World) bust our collective asses to give our customers what they want, and the results of our efforts show. Retail sales were down or flat in the last quarter of 2006, but not ours; we were up solidly for December and spectacularly (up more than 35%) in October and November. Our sales were up 7% for 2006. We do this by speaking to any group who will listen to us talk about books (more than you’d think), visiting and cultivating book clubs, selling books at readings for local libraries, working extensively with community organizations, and doing pretty much anything else we can do that will make people like us.
So our answer to the Entrepreneur’s question, “What would you have to believe about my store to be willing to come here and spend money?”, the answer is that we will do anything to get you the book(s) you want as quickly as possible; and that if you’re not sure what book you want, we’ll help you make an informed decision. (I wonder if Jane above, who gets overwhelmed browsing a bookstore, has ever considered just Asking at the Counter.) That is our job; it’s what we do. Not everyone needs this level of service from a bookstore, but you’d be surprised how many people like and want it, and we offer it whether you’re buying a single mass-market paperback or an armful of expensive hardcovers. And while we don’t discount many of our books, our time and knowledge are always available at no charge. And knowledge we’ve got in spades (I only managed to read 35 books last year, but my wife and co-owner Sally read 268).
Back to Clive: 97 indie stores opened last year, according to the ABA; the two year total is close to 200. My prediction is that these numbers are on the upswing. Print is not dead; the Internet won’t kill a bookstore unless they let themselves be killed; and price is not king. Success as an indie bookseller is not about convincing people why they need indie bookstores (because, technically, they don’t “need” them at all)–it’s about reminding them what they have always loved about our stores. That’s what keeps them coming in the door.
Frazer
Park Road Books (a store who isn’t going anywhere)
Note from the Wicked Witch: Hi, Frazer! I’ve been waiting for you to weigh-in! I figured you’d be pounding the keys through the night! Here’s my problem with ”up 35%+.” When you say it, it means something to me because I don’t think of Park Road Books as being on the skids, so to speak. But if another indie owner tried to sell me his bookstore, telling me revenues were up 35% over a month or two, I say, really, that’s great and a good sign, but let me see the P&L for the past three years. Does the 35% mean he can afford to buy Donald Trump’s yacht or does he just have a firmer grip on a life preserver ring? Surviving or thriving? More on this next week when I open my “pretend” bookstore. (For the past 18 years Park Road Books, located in Charlotte, North Carolina has been voted “Charlotte’s Best” by readers and editors of Creative Loafing, the arts and entertainment newspaper. )
January 12th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
It would seem that bookstores need to make the leap from buggy whip to transportation provider. Such stores have
to view themselves as information and/or entertainment providers or centers. In all likelihood, much too soon than I’d like there will be no need (or desire) to go to a store to buy a book. It will come to us, and eventually, a “book” will exist only as an electronic object that we can receive through our cable/satellite/phone “lines.” Movie theaters (and, increasingly, video stores) are facing this challenge too:
What is it we can do to keep getting people to leave their homes and offices and come to us? A shared entertainment experience, perhaps. The future bookstore will be an oasis of information and entertainment with other people present, and it may save some of us from isolation and alienation.
January 12th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
Dear Lynne:
Your unnamed marketing guru lost me with his brilliance that Starbucks doesn’t sell coffee. What, praytell, do they sell, Mr. Guru, electrical wiring?
I have no epiphanies about how indies can triumph over chains, however from here on in I shall begin calling myself a publishing guru and charge $1,000 per hour. My first genius-level insight will be offered gratis: bookstores aren’t selling books.
Seriously, I’ve given some thought to this subject before:
http://preciouscargo.blogspot.com/2006/05/are-chain-bookstores-better-than.html
Despite my fondness for some independent bookstores, the small, friendly, homey local bookstore is analagous to the family farm.
Chains + online selling vs. indies = agribusiness vs. family farms.
Living in Los Angeles for over 30 years, I’ve seen the demise of most of the indies I frequented and loved.
Apart from used bookstores (a truly endangered species) the two types of idies in LA tended to be eclectic stores that offered everything and stores specializing in being genre completists. Both types are largely extinct.
One of the few indies to arise in the past 20 years and thrive is Book Soup in West Hollywood, which is really more like a chain store than an indie, albeit a bit “crunchier”.
Most people entering a bookstore are looking for that one book a year they’ve heard about and have to buy. Chains are perfect for them. The tiny remainder of “real” readers are insufficient to support indies, so increasingly seek their esoterica online.
Where does that leave most indies? Sharing the fate of the trilobyte.
January 12th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
In Wednesday’s NYT there was an article entitled: “The Breakfast Wars.” McDonalds is introducing a new, higher quality coffee to complete with Starbuck’s coffee. Starbucks is introducing hot egg-and-cheese sandwiches on English muffins.
They are both after the crowd that spends no more than “three minutes” on a grab-and-go breakfast and doesn’t want to make TWO stops to get “high quality” food and drink.
Who figured out that people didn’t want to make two stops on the way to work? If I had been asked, I would have said I wanted ONE stop shopping, yet routinely stopped at three places on the way to work:
1)Buy a newspaper on the corner.
2)Drop into Starbuck’s for a coffee-to-go.
3)Swing by the local deli for a giant brownie to accompany my coffee. (Shame on me!)
No one asked ME!
Interesting….
January 12th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
In re the up 35%….well, I’m never going to be able to afford Mr. Trump’s yacht, and don’t really want to (especially if it comes with that appalling hair). I think if you’re up that much (for the record, it was 41% in October and 38% in November), it’s good news in and of itself, but it does matter whether you’re a new store or one that’s celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, like us.
I’m also not meaning to imply it isn’t hard. We could not have survived many more 2005’s, for example (one reason for great growth was a crappy previous year). We still walk that tightrope. I guess my point in all my rambling is to say that you can in fact succeed as an independent bookseller if you are willing to do two things: work your everlovin’ ass off and, more importantly, give your customers what they want. That’s what struck me about the NYT article about the bookseller closing in Princeton. My heart goes out to him, but the article made it sound like he considers bookselling the noble peddling of knowledge, when really it’s about connecting a customer with something that’s going to satisfy her soul at the end of a long day. Don’t tell your customer what she SHOULD want–help her find what she DOES want.
surviving and thriving,
Frazer
January 12th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
It’s crazy to sell other things than books in a book store. Just sell books– fill the place from boards to ceiling with more books. Then you have what Amazon doesn’t– a place to visit that’s full of books. That’s when people buy things thay hadn’t thought of or had never seen. When competition is fierce you should try and do better the thing for which you have a reputation– not worse. If a man comes alongside your vegetable stand to compete– sell fresher veg, not ice cream. This isn’t the same as the story about horse whips. There’s masses of stuff that people have written for which there is still a market. So get a cheap building and fill it with what they wrote.
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): Tim Coates is a former bookseller who has become a well-known advocate for improvements in public-library service. He was the first U.K. bookseller to open an all-night bookstore with a cafe, sofas, we now associate with bookstores around the world. In his current work, he strives to bring the same customer orientation to libraries.
January 12th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
Always talk with your customer: Remember, working in a bookstore, like a library reference desk, is like running a dry bar! The more you know about the person on the other side of the counter, the more you can satisfy their literary needs & whims.
January 13th, 2007 at 4:08 am
I am sure that Frazer and Lynne will enjoy this piece of sloppy reporting which followed Thursday’s publication of the HMV interim figures.
http://www.inthenews.co.uk/news/news-channels/business-channel/hmv-shows-strong-online-growth-1039868.htm
>>Christmas sales for the group were up by 10.3 per cent, with its book division, Waterstone’s, showing a total sales growth of 39.2 per cent.
January 13th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
Tim and Rowena are right on! And I love Clive’s story. That said, we do good with a few non-book items. We tried some jigsaw puzzles this season–I, being the cheap person with the checkbook, objected, but Sally thought we could do well with them, and she was absolutely right. But no coffee.
But it is too bad it has to be a dry bar.
January 14th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
What a wonderful debate!
But did anyone ever start a bookstore with the aim of making Donald Trump money? Sorry, but that’s why Trump is in Real Estate. It is about finding out what your customer wants, but also what the bookseller wants.
It’s my guess that the booksellers who are still thriving in this environment are people who love and value literature and books and have devoted their time and patience and ingenuity for something that they value much more than money.
Starbucks does not just sell coffee. I would never go to a Starbucks if I couln’t sit for as long as I wanted and write on my computer. I can even bring my own food in. I don’t have to intereact with people, but I can see them working around me, and that is the perfect atmosphere for me to write in. The music is usually great. I think of it as my office. A bookstore where you were allowed to do that would do very well, and if you could read from the store library it would be even better.
I have been contemplating opening just such a place for a while now. Anyone interested?
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): Kara is finishing her MFA in fiction at Sarah Lawrence College this spring. She has a short piece coming out in a magazine devoted to writing on hair called: ‘Submerged - Tales from the Basin’, and another short story has been accepted at the New Ohio Review. She was a finalist in two short story contests this year, and was nominated for the 2007 ‘Best New American Voices’, She is working on her first novel.
January 16th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
Voice Literary Supplement
Chain Reaction
Do bookstores have a future?
by Paul Collins
May 22nd, 2006 5:50 PM
http://www.villagevoice.com/books/0621,collins,73282,10.html
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): Thanks, Peter. VERY interesting.
January 19th, 2007 at 8:19 am
I’m working on my next posting right now.
I’m thinking of calling my pretend, “inherited” bookstore Treadwaters! (Hah!)
I’ll post later today or early tomorrow!
Lynne
February 10th, 2007 at 7:03 pm
[...] On the Care & Cultivation of Books (& Writers) « Coincidentally An Answer February 11th, 2007 On this same subject of indie bookselling, finding meaning, and community,the Wicked Witch of Publishing sets up a pretend independent bookstore, and then through a series of discussions w/friends and community members, sets out to learn how to make the darn thing survive in this world of big biz bookselling. And, I agree with her findings: it’s that idea of being part of the community that makes sense to me — not in the sense of all that promotional BS, and drawing customers in with special events and deals, but reeaaally being part of the community — going out there and participating. Being real. We all need that nowadays. [...]
February 21st, 2007 at 4:23 pm
One way for indi booksellers to “survive” is for a town’s indi booksellers to create a business collective rent or buy a building and put each of their unique bookstores into that one location. Act as if they’ve set up a department store. Keep their own businesses, accounts, etc., but just do it as a “collective”. It would work.
June 18th, 2007 at 8:14 am
This is exactly what I expected to find out after reading the title Mystery Entrepreneur Offers Advice to Independent Bookstore Owners: Future Boils Down to ONE Question!. Thanks for informative article
September 15th, 2007 at 1:13 am
What an interesting thought provoking site that I stumbled upon. We are what you will term as an ïndie” bookstore in a far far away place called Singapore. “Indie”reminds me of Indiana Jones. Maybe the 5th installment would be titled “Ïndiana Jones and the delerick bookstores” Distance is not a entry barrier for Borders for it came to our shores a few years back and is opening its second store soon this year. Yikes ! “This town aint big enough for the both of us” Clint Eastwood would have said that in his gunslinging cowboy days. I will certainly return to your mindbloggling sitre. Cheers : )
December 4th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
I think indie bookstores should merge with indie art galleries. They are both looking for the same general audience, and both could use a break on overhead costs. It could be win-win.
December 5th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
I confess, I do most of my book shopping online, but I often wander into indie bookstores, especially when I want to see what’s new and interesting. You can’t really browse online like the mystery dude says. But I recently stopped in a chain bookstore and I was APPALLED at the amount of pure unadulterated garbage. For example, there was a $10 ukulele packaged with a $10 book that was being sold for $40. There were cheap, poorly made toys bearing the visage of formerly beloved children’s book characters. There were “deluxe” editions of classic books that were bound in cheap imitation leather, their gilt-edged paper was GROUNDWOOD (couldn’t have been more that 35# either) and the layout of the pages looked as if it had been scanned from a 1978 edition and adjusted to fit the oversized page. It was CRAP. I hope the chains continue to produce and push garbage like this. Eventually customers will be driven to their local stores.